Douglas
Lewis was associated with the National Gallery of Art in Washington for
forty years (1964-2004): for thirty-six of them, he was Curator of Sculpture
and Decorative Arts, as well as head of that department of three-dimensional
objects for most of his working life. He took his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D.
degrees in Art History from Yale University, as well as a B.A. and M.A. in
Fine Arts from Clare College of the University of Cambridge. He is a
Prix-de-Rome Fellow, and holds a diploma in Classical Studies, from the
American Academy in Rome; he earned a language certificate there, as well as
from Columbia University, and the University of Vienna. The international
fellowships for his doctoral research supported a three-year residence in
Rome and Venice, and he has returned to Europe several times a year, ever
since. He is an expert on Renaissance, Baroque, and Nineteenth-Century
painting, sculpture, and decorative arts: his principal books (among a list
of some 150 publications) include “The Late Baroque Churches of Venice,”
Garland Press, New York, 1979; “The Drawings of Andrea Palladio,” 1st ed.
1981, 2nd revised and enlarged ed., Martin-St. Martin, New Orleans, 2000;
and “Renaissance Bronze Reliefs and Plaquettes,” vol. 1, 2006, and vol. 2,
2007 (being published by the National Gallery of Art).
Dr. Lewis has taught art and architectural history, and decorative arts, at
a half-dozen of the country’s pre-eminent universities: at Yale (1962-1964);
Bryn Mawr (1967-1968); the University of California at Berkeley, in
1969-1970, as well as in 1979-1980; The Johns Hopkins University, 1973-1977;
Georgetown University (in Washington, and also at the Georgetown Villa near
Florence), 1980-1993; and at the University of Maryland, Honors Program
(1993-2003), where he was voted Outstanding Advisor (for his work as Coach
of the Men’s Crew), and in 2000 as “Best Teacher on Campus.” He has served
for periods as long as thirty-five years, on the boards of the Centro
Palladiano in Vicenza; the Belgian-American Educational Foundation; the
Smith College Museum of Art; the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum; the
University of Virginia Museum of Art; the Fine Arts Committee of the
Lawrenceville School; the Friends of the Audubon and Rosedown State Historic
Sites, in Louisiana; and the Natchez Literary Celebration, in Mississippi.
He retired in 2005 as Chairman of the Postmaster-General’s Stamp Advisory
Committee, after a twenty-six-year tenure of responsibility for United
States stamp designs. He is the author of the forthcoming “Buildings of
Mississippi,” sponsored by the Society of Architectural Historians and the
National Endowment for the Humanities. He was awarded the Smithsonian
Institution’s Copley Medal in 1981, and since 1980 has been listed in “Who’s
Who in America” (currently in its 60th ed., 2006, vol. 1, p. 2791). He lives
on his family’s 202-year-old plantation in southern Mississippi.
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